The unhappy Queen looked round the narrow walls of this room, which was almost a cell, with astonishment not unmixed with indignation. She had hardly realised until now that she was a prisoner, for the crafty Osten had conveyed to her the idea that she was going to Kronborg more for her own safety than as a captive. But the iron-barred windows, and the guard outside her door, brought home to her her unfortunate condition. At least she, the daughter of kings, the wife of a king, and the mother of a king to be, had the right to be treated with the respect due to her rank and dignity. Whatever offences were charged against her nothing was yet proved. Even if she were a prisoner, she was at least a state prisoner, and though her liberty might be curtailed, every effort should have been made to study as far as possible her comfort and convenience. But locked into this little room, barely furnished and without a fire, she found herself treated more like a common criminal than the reigning Queen, and when she protested against these indignities, the commandant told her that he was only obeying his strict orders. The Queen, whose spirit was for the moment broken by fatigue and excitement, and who was nearly frozen from the cold of the long journey, sank down upon the pallet bed, and burst into bitter weeping. Her women endeavoured in vain to comfort her, and it was only at last, when they reminded her of her child, that she was roused from the abandonment of her grief. “You are here too, dear innocent!” she exclaimed. “In that case, your poor mother is not utterly desolate.”
THE ROOM IN WHICH QUEEN MATILDA WAS IMPRISONED AT KRONBORG.
For two days the Queen remained inconsolable, and did little but sit in a state of stupor, looking out upon the waves; nor could she be prevailed upon to take any rest, or food, or even to lie down upon the bed. It was true that the food offered her was such that she could not eat it, unless compelled by the pangs of hunger, for she was given at first the same food as that served out to the common prisoners. In these first days it was a wonder that she did not die of hunger and cold. It was a bitter winter, violent gales blew across the sea, and the wind shrieked and raged around the castle walls; but there was no way of warming the little room in which the Queen was confined. In her hurried departure from Copenhagen she had brought with her very few clothes. No others were sent her, and she had hardly the things necessary to clothe herself with propriety, or protect herself against the severity of the weather. She was not allowed to pass the threshold of her room, not even to the large room beyond, where there was a fire. This room was occupied by soldiers, who acted as her jailors, and the women who passed in and out of the Queen’s room were liable to be searched.
This treatment of the Queen, for which there was no excuse, must be traced directly to Juliana Maria; it was she who caused instructions to be sent to the commandant as to how he was to treat his royal prisoner. The King was too indifferent to trouble one way or another, and the commandant would not have dared to inflict such indignities on the King’s consort unless he had received strict orders to do so from those in authority—nor would he have wished to do so. Later the Queen acquitted him from all responsibility in this respect. After the first few days, when she had recovered from the shock of recent events, Queen Matilda accepted her imprisonment more patiently, and bore her hardships with a dignity and fortitude which enforced respect even from her jailors, and proved that she was no unworthy daughter of the illustrious house from which she sprang.
CHAPTER V.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE QUEEN-DOWAGER.